When all you have is a craphammer, all tasks are basically... no wait...

TV / Video

April 12, 2012

A little over a year ago I set out to launch a project. For months I would do everything in my power to work on anything else under the sun. The project scared me. There was no client. There was no one else to blame if things went wrong. And frankly, it was too close to my heart and my purpose.

Friends and associates stepped forward on every front. Without them I never would have been able to make this project see the light of day. Some designed logos for me. Others built the back end. Some stepped forward to help me on my first mini doc for the new site.

I wanted to document, speak with and understand the most passionate people I could find, whether they be artists, parents, circus performers or gardeners. I wanted to find and understand these people. I wanted to know what it was like to be them and share their motivations, tools and outlook with the rest of us.

Craphammer was a fun and key part of my professional life that has been dormant for far too long. So now it is time for me to let go and turn my attentions to the mostpassionate.ca.

I hope you will take a minute to stop by and check it out. I'll save a place for you there.

January 30, 2010

I'm quite amazed at the whiplash from the tech-heads and geeks around the iPad.

Is the name unfortunate? Yes.

Does it do everything under the sun? Hell no and thank god!

Will it be a game changer? Yes. No question.

But, Sean, "It's just a large iTouch!!!"

I hear this over and over. In fact, I predicted it would be a large iTouch.

So here's what I say back to all the geeks.

"Boo Hoo."

Because what people are really saying when they complain about this is "I wanted something new that was alien and inconceivable."

"I wanted to be surprised more!"

The iPhone was not alien and inconceivable. We all knew it would be a phone and iPod with applications.

What made the iPhone so wonderful was the focus on design and the experience of using it.

I believe and predict that the iPad will be a game changer and here is why.

It is what we all needed and the industry was waiting for.

But no one had ever produced it.

Amazon came close with the Kindle. But it failed to allow for further innovation by third parties out of the box.

Amazon also failed miserably with rolling out their device internationally.

Let's also keep in mind that the publishing industry is in need of some serious innovation here.

The content industry is still reeling from the financial shocks they have had to endure.

And to date there has been no easy way for traditional publishers to reach a global audience while also adding unique value.

With the kindle, every publisher is the same.

This is assuming publishers don't make the same mistake as NBC and publicly state they will never be on iTunes (which NBC then had to take back many years and lots of missed dollars later).

The iPad will see a global increase in purchased consumption of eBooks and rich publishing content.

Will publishers make as much per title as they want? no. But it will drive revenue.

And yet the savviest amongst us are shouting out the perceived faults of this device as loud as they can.

So let's look at these complaints.

One of the biggest complaints is the lack of multi-tasking. You can only run one application at a time.

Geeks are aghast.

"Boo Hoo," is all I can say back.

The average person won't care. Nor will they care that the bevel is "large" or that there is no camera on their media reader.

Now... no flash sucks... but that's not a deal breaker. That's just Apple being stubborn. Again.

Here's the kicker.

The geeks clearly have their pocket protectors in a wad over this. But mark my words, almost all of them will have one of these.

They will all own an iPad.

Or they will go and buy a Sony Reader and we can all sympathize with their sad, poor little ebook content.

So let's assume it's just a fanatical few who are up in arms.

What will people care about?

That's easy. The battery life, the responsiveness of the unit, and the experience of using it. The experience being tied to the content available.

Design is a hard game. It is a game of constant restrictions and constraints.

You can't have everything. You have to make intelligent compromises.

Note: you can have everything with bad design. Tried to use an alarm clock recently with 325 functions but only 3 control buttons? It's three years later and I still can't operate my alarm clock reliably.

Apple made the right choices. 10 hours of batter life together with a form, size and weight that is f'ing amazing.

So I believe quite strongly that the iPad will be a game changer.

I have long stated my belief that piracy will not go away. In fact, it will get worse.

The only solution for the publishing industry is to make their content ubiquitous to the user (digitally) and easy to purchase. Easy, easy, easy!!

I spend quite a bit of money a month through my Apple TV because it's the highest quality HD content and it's one easy click with millions of titles at my fingertips.

But when something isn't there... hello torrent.

Remember this presentation from Sports Illustrated?

We all thought of it as science fiction. Who in their right mind in the publishing industry would pump this kind of money into something this risky? Only a moron looking to do a Kliavkoff. [edit: correction to name made]

Only now, the hardware exists to exactly enable this vision.

The iPad.

Sport Illustrated just has to write an app. No hardware risks. No crazy licensing deals.

Anyone can take their publishing vision and move it onto a platform that will have a global rollout and support.

December 08, 2008

Lord help us all, we have a Facebook page. Though I should point out we haven't figured out how to feature any of our videos there yet. ESB #9 is Paul, Gavin and myself talking about a variety of trends and emerging platforms.

October 13, 2008

We briefly explore why people buy things vs. stealing them. Why do people buy in a world where almost everything can be gotten for free? We explore what O'Reilly is seeing in their sales of digital "books" and how it is now their third largest sales channel.

Then my connection from the Banff mountains forces us into the normal ESB videoconferencing experience. That and I had to put pants on.

(My apologies for cutting off Paul when he was on a roll... we were not seeing what each other was saying in real time anymore... and I had to get dressed for dinner. grin.)

August 13, 2008

For anyone looking to understand the growth and role of YouTube (and other social media technologies) in our world today. From the guy who brought us "The machine is using us" video and one of the earliest to run a digital ethnography study of YouTube.

August 11, 2008

I have to come clean. I've too often put slides in front of my audiences touting the insane number of mobile subscribers globally or the penetration of broadband in North America.

Guy Murphy's talk on the future of account planning gives a sobering view of a world where "more people in the world do not have a mobile phone than do have one, that only 13 per cent of the world have a computer and the global penetration of broadband is just 4%". It's an awesome and cogent plea for a focus on building global brands, albeit a little strong on the ever increasing profits front.

"There is no such thing as a global consumer. There are only local consumers enjoying more and more globally available things."

"Ideas for global brands will be rooted less in consumer insight and more more in human truth."

I wish more organizations would look for opportunities to partner with demented but talented and caring individuals like Dr. Octagon. What an amazing piece. But no. Let's go and spend money putting out some more PSAs that no-one will remember.

April 17, 2008

TV is going digital and as Get Shouty has been quick to point out in session after session here at AdTech San Francisco,
"programming is dead." She is not alone as many of the panelist are
talking about how advertising and media must work to stay relevant.

A lot of the convention has revolved around the changes afoot in the
television industry. Everyone appears to be struggling with how to
monetize and extend their programming into and across digital channels.
Here is a wonderful example of how ABC is allowing for property
experiences that blur the line between channels.

A funny video, no doubt, and one that perfectly illustrates the
potential for overlap between channels. Jimmy Kimmel plays a YouTube
video live on the air that his girlfriend created. Jimmy then launches
a counter video on YouTube. All of this is then recorded and uploaded back to YouTube. But what is
the value of this? Is it scalable? Does that matter?

Based on the Jimmy Kimmel example, I could go so far as to say
ABC/Disney gets it, but do they? ABC allows for short snippets to
appear on YouTube. For full length episodes, users have to go to
ABC.com. This is the case with all the networks, isn't it?

The current media star of cross channel TV appears to be NBC by all
the press it's getting. In early March, the NY Times reported NBC's
launch of Hulu was finally ready for primetime.
NBC has entered the fray with advertising supported full length
episodes of their TV entertainment properties. Originally a venture of
NBC and Fox, hulu has grown with
content commitments from Warner Brothers, Lionsgate, highlights from
NBA and NHL along with full NCAA basketball games.

Cut to yesterday where it was standing room only for the AdTech San Francisco keynote by George Kliavkoff, Chief Digital Officer of NBC Universal.

Unlike ABC, NBC is using hulu for displaying content from
partners in addition to NBC properties. Pretty cool, but what what really
impressed me is that NBC is using hulu to manage their digital
distribution deals. George stated very clearly that they built hulu
with the mandate that people should not and likely would not come to
hulu. Rather, it's about getting hulu media onto other sites that
people are already visiting. To that point, hulu currently distributes
their work via MSN, Yahoo, Fancast, AOL and Myspace.

It is awesome to see that hulu is not just talk in this regard.
They are enabling their members to be part of the distribution channel
as well. They are allowing viewers to easily embed clips or
even entire episodes on their blogs, personal pages or elsewhere. The
embedded show will play the pre-roll or in-roll ads.

What? Ads on my blog or MySpace page if I embed a hulu tv show?
Yes. hulu is clearly ad supported and potentially quite successful in that regard.
George is on record at AdTech saying NBC has made
a billion dollars in digital sales in 2007 with strong profit margins
that are continuing to climb.

"Crown Jewels", George? George tries to imply that NBC is not on
iTunes because they desire to control the wholesale pricing. But the Adam is quick to point out that NBC is happy to sell feature
length movies via iTunes. Why not a TV show???

The George K comments debate

Everyone is talking about George K and his comments. And everyone wants to know what he is talking about. Why
aren't they on iTunes? Well, here it is in plain text. NBC is scared
SHITLESS about piracy because advertisers don't want to pay money to
attach themselves to something that is available without ads for free.

Okay. So NBC has to take a harsh line and prove to advertisers that
online is a safe environment worth paying to play. So why single out
iTunes? Simple. George K gives us the answer on a platter.

iTunes does not attempt to sniff the items you play to verify they are legitimated copies. iTunes
is not going around behind your back and reporting on your "illicit"
behavior. Rather, Apple just focuses on protecting what you buy via
iTunes. Evil. I know.

So what about viewership growth, George? A few minutes later,
George was quick to tout the results of a study where NBC showed that
when people watch content on hulu it drives significant growth in
traditional TV viewers on next weeks time slot.
So what's the big deal if there's a bit of piracy?

All in all, hulu is pretty amazing. Most critiques of hulu pretty
quick to zero in on quality or lack of content. Quality is a given. If the quality is lower people are less likely to pirate the show and the costs to stream it are lower. But why limit content on hulu? The NY Times article at
the top of this post inferred that content producers are currently
protecting themselves from perceived risk
by limiting the amount of content availability online. Logging into
Hulu today, little has changed on this front. There is a very limited
library of past shows available.

So NBC has their hands full. They have to prove themselves to
advertisers and even content producers (internal and otherwise.) As we
speak, they are working on launching NBC Direct which will be a
locked down DRM (Digital Rights Management) solution that allows for
high resolution show viewing (with ads or purchased was not clear).
The platform will limit how many shows you can have at any one time and
will only allow you to view said shows on the machine you download it
to.

Consumers forcing the shift to digital

Digg Nation has
250,000 subscribers a week, are selective about who can advertise and go out of their way to embrace
new devices and formats. Kevin Rose was very clear in stating that they want viewers to be able to watch the show
(and the embedded ads) "where they want, when they want and how they
want." Ask a Ninja has over 500,000 subscribers (viewers) a week. Both of these properties are among a growing list of non-traditional shows ONLY available online/digitally.

While traditional properties and distributors are struggling with renegotiating international rights for digital distribution, new players are moving in fast and hard. Someone
please explain to me how Microsoft was able to allow for movie rentals and
downloads on the XBOX 360 platform and apparently offer this service across international barriers. I wish Apple TV was paying attention on that front as my device is basically a coffee mug warmer in Canada.

In cases where properties believe they are deploying traditionally, consumers now have the option of forcing digital on the channel/show. Todd Juenger from TiVo points out that 75% to 80% of prime time shows like Grace Anatomy are being time
shifted. In the case of Grace Anatomy, 70% to 75% of viewers time shifting
the show are skipping the ads.

What makes the difference between a commercial that people skip or
fast forward and one they dont? TiVo guy kept mentioning statistics
but sadly gave none. This fact is likely either unknown or worth a lot of money.

Summary

Time and again I am forced to witness the media channels defining
audience needs based on the needs of advertisers. So much in the
advertising space is about what is less offensive or what is "hot"
right now as determined by what the agencies and brands want to buy. I heard this in the TV 3.0 panel every time the woman from Turner Entertainment Ad Sales spoke.

It was neat, therefore, to see her viewpoint countered by people like Kenneth Estenson
from ABC who spoke about what they are learning by watching how, when
and where younger generations are interacting with TV properties.

NBC shows they understand that it is about expanding content reach,
not driving people to a portal. They are also struggling with getting a
lot of diverse players comfortable and willing to play. In the meantime, Hulu has become a
powerful distribution channel for NBC and a way for viewers to interact with shows on their terms.

But is it as rosy a
picture as NBC is painting? For example, are media sales still being
thrown in as value add to a traditional buy? Is avoiding iTunes really worth the cost of the loss of reach to iPod devices?